Media & Entertainment Law

Why the ABA Survey Gets it Wrong on Blogs

Posted on March 29, 2011
Let me ask you a question: Where are you more likely to buy a car, at a Superbowl commercial or at your local auto dealer? Given that most people would say auto dealer, it follows that Superbowl commercials must not be effective at selling cars, right? Of course not...

Looking for Office Space? Site Helps Lawyers Find It

Posted on March 25, 2011
A relatively new website functions as an office-space matchmaker for the legal profession, pairing law firms that have space to sublet with solo and small-firm lawyers who need to obtain an office. The site, LookingForSpace.com, is exclusively devoted to office space for lawyers and aims to develop a national database of listings...

Podcast: The Slippery Legal Issues of Snow and Ice

Posted on February 10, 2011
When snow and ice result in personal injury or property damage, who is legally responsible? The answer will likely depend on the law of the state where the accident occurs. For more than 100 years, Massachusetts applied a rule that a property owner is not liable in tort for failing to remove a natural accumulation [...

Lexis Releases Firm Manager to Public Beta

Posted on February 08, 2011
I wrote here in December about the impending release by LexisNexis of a Web-based practice-management application designed for smaller-firm lawyers called LexisNexis Firm Manager. At the time, it was still in private beta with plans to release it to an invitation-only public beta starting in 2011...

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Survey: Judges Split on Their Use of Social Media

Posted on October 28, 2010
Forty percent of state court judges use social media profile sites, with the majority of them on Facebook. Even so, nearly half of judges strongly believe that they cannot participate professionally in social networking sites without compromising judicial ethics...

The Top 25 Business Law Blogs of 2010

Posted on October 27, 2010
This is a good list of 25 business law blogs compiled by the LexisNexis Corporate & Securities Law Community.

The Latest on Facebook, Privacy and the Law

Posted on October 22, 2010
On the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer this week, we follow up on the Wall Street Journal investigation that found that several popular Facebook applications may be inappropriately using users? personal information. We discuss the legal implications of this with two guests: Kimberley Isbell, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and staff attorney for the Citizen [...

New Site Bridges Law School, Law Practice

Posted on September 28, 2010
A legal education site being launched today, Beyond The Bar, aims to provide a bridge between law school and law practice, providing training to new associates in business skills, legal skills and client relations. The site is sponsored by Thomson Reuters and the West LegalEdcenter...

New Blog Focuses on Disputes in Family Businesses

Posted on September 24, 2010
With the spectacle of the Frank and Jamie McCourt divorce being played out in a Los Angeles courtroom, there might be no better time for the launch of Our Family Business at Odds, a new legal blog that focuses on the unique legal issues that arise when family-owned businesses suffer internal meltdowns...

Crowdsourcing the Law

Posted on August 06, 2010
Law Technology News has my latest column, Crowdsourcing the Law, in which I review innovative new legal websites that rely on the legal community to help gather and refine expertise. Sites I review are: Spindle Law. Judgepedia. OpenRegs.com.

ABA Technology Survey on Social Networking

Posted on July 22, 2010
The ABA Legal Technology Resource Center is out with its 2010 Legal Technology Survey Report. The six-volume survey looks at legal-technology trends in various aspects of law practice. Reliable statistics about lawyers’ use of technology are hard to come by, but this annual survey has proven to be a fairly good indicator of overall trends...

Slideshow: Rockport?s Fourth of July Bonfire

Posted on July 05, 2010
Our town’s bonfire just off the beach is even more spectacular than fireworks. (Click to open in larger window.)

Another Large Firm Unveils an iPhone App

Posted on June 29, 2010
Following on the heels of Morrison & Foerster and its launch of an iPhone app in March, the Boston-based AmLaw 200 firm Goulston & Storrs this week came out with an iPhone app of its own. While the MoFo app had the clever name, MoFo2Go, the G&S app is rather blandly dubbed, Goulston & Storrs [...

Podcast: Legal Outfall from the BP Oil Spill

Posted on June 07, 2010
It may be the worst environmental disaster ever. As oil continues to flow into the Gulf, we consider the legal implications on this week’s episode of the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer. Joining me to discuss this issue are Rhon E. Jones, manager of the toxic torts practice at the law firm Beasley Allen in Montgomery, Ala...

Manage Service of Process via The Cloud

Posted on June 04, 2010
When his lawyer could not readily provide an update on the status of service of a lawsuit, software entrepreneur Robert J. Daino decided to do something about it. In March, after two years of development, Daino launched ServeCentral, a Web-based tool designed to help legal professionals manage the process of service of process...

Legal Skirmish over Civil War Psych Records

Posted on April 26, 2010
Reporter Tom Scheffey has an interesting story in the Connecticut Law Tribune about a public-records fight over psychiatric records of Civil War soldiers.A professor and a graduate student at Central Connecticut State University wanted access to the records in connection with the student's research for his thesis involving post-traumatic stress disorder...

Lowell Sun Wins Appeal on Cop?s Records

Posted on April 26, 2010
In a post at the New England First Amendment Center, Tom Zuppa, assistant managing editor at The Sun in Lowell, tells about his paper's fight to get access to records of a police internal-affairs investigation in Tyngsboro, Mass. The kicker is that even though town officials knew the law required them to release the documents, they held onto them because they had agreed with police not to release them unless ordered to do so by the attorney general or secretary of state...

U.S. Court in Mass. Mulls Easing of Cameras Rule

Posted on April 15, 2010
The U.S. District Court in Massachusetts is proposing a rule change that would allow cameras in federal courtrooms. The proposed rule would expressly authorize judges to permit the transmission of court proceedings by broadcast and via the Internet.The proposal is a response to the decision of the 1st U...

AG Seeks Comment on Rule for Posting Open Meeting Notices

Posted on April 12, 2010
The new open meeting law that takes effect in Massachusetts on July 1 requires municipalities to post meeting notices "in a manner conspicuously visible to the public at all hours." Given that public buildings are generally not open "at all hours," some municipalities are concerned about how they will comply...

Coakley Names Director of Open Government

Posted on April 01, 2010
Attorney General Martha Coakley announced yesterday that she has named lawyer Robert Nasdor to be director of the new Division of Open Government. The new division within the AG's office was created as part of a major overhaul of the state's open meeting law that goes into effect on July 1...

Battle Brewing Over Blog Comments

Posted on April 01, 2010
The Boston Globe today has a piece (Town of Southborough considers suing annonymous online commenter) about the unfortunate situation in Southborough, Mass., where the town counsel and selectmen are threatening a lawsuit to uncover the identity of someone who posted comments on Susan Fitzgerald's blog, MySouthborough...

Legislators Bury Bills That Would Expose them to Sunshine

Posted on March 29, 2010
Many in Massachusetts do not realize that the legislature has exempted itself from the open meeting law. While most state and local boards and committees are required by law to conduct their business in public, the legislature has no such requirement...

Judiciary Committee Extends Review of Shield Bill

Posted on March 25, 2010
The Massachusetts legislature's Joint Committee on the Judiciary has extended to May 7 the date by which it must report for or against a shield bill that would protect journalists' confidential sources. March 17 was the deadline for the committee to issue a report on the bill, but an extension order gives the committee until May 7...

Symposium: Legal Challenges in Digital Journalism

Posted on March 24, 2010
The Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard's Berkman Center has put together a not-to-be-missed day-long symposium, Journalism's Digital Transition: Unique Legal Challenges and Opportunities. The April 9 program features a stellar array of speakers and panelists that includes leading lawyers, journalists and academics...

Roundtable: The Judiciary and the Media

Posted on March 22, 2010
The Supreme Judicial Court's Judiciary-Media Committee is sponsoring a half-day program on Friday, March 26, on the judiciary and the news media. The program takes place at the John Adams Courthouse in Boston, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The schedule is as follows: 8:30 a...

Proposed Ban on Reporting Minors' Names Appears Dead

Posted on March 22, 2010
A Massachusetts bill that would ban the news media from reporting the names of minors who appear in a broadcast or photograph appears unlikely to pass this session.The bill, Senate 1669, would prohibit the media from using minors' names without first obtaining the express, written consent of the minor's parent or guardian...

Does a School Board 'Retreat' Violate the Open Meeting Law?

Posted on March 21, 2010
That is the question raised in this article in The Republican today. The Springfield School Committee is spending the weekend at a resort in the Berkshires for a training program led by a group called the Center for Reform of School Systems.The district attorney gave the gathering a green light...

This blog has moved

Posted on March 19, 2010
This blog is now located at http://medialaw.legaline.com/. You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here. For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to http://medialaw.legaline.com/feeds/posts/default...

This blog has moved

Posted on March 19, 2010
This blog is now located at http://medialaw.legaline.com/. You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here. For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to http://medialaw.legaline.com/feeds/posts/default...

DA says Rockland Selectmen Violated Open Meeting Law

Posted on March 19, 2010
The Plymouth County district attorney's office has found that selectmen in Rockland, Mass., violated the open meeting law in the process of hiring a full-time accountant, The Patriot Ledger reports. A town accountant search committee also violated the law.

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